Three Ohio Prison Suicides in a Month Prompts Review; Guards Falsified Tier Check Logs

by Mark Wilson

The party was set, invitations were in the mail and Ohio officials were fussing over all the last minute details to ensure that August 7, 2013 was a night to remember.

Unfortunately, however, the guest of “honor,” condemned prisoner Billy Slagle, 44, spoiled their execution party by hanging himself in the early morning hours of August 4, 2013.

“He was in his cell alone,” said JoEllen Smith, Chillicothe Correctional Institution spokeswoman. “It does appear to be a suicide.”

Still, “they are looking for a fall guy,” claimed guard Tim Shafer, the guard union’s operations director. “The fall guy is always going to be the corrections officer. They should be looking from the top down.”

As Shafer correctly predicted, attention quickly focused on the most likely suspects: the six guards who were working on death row when Slagle killed himself. None of whom were trained in death row operations, according to a nine-page, September 16, 2013 internal investigation report.

Probationary guard Clay Putnam, 19, and another guard were placed on administrative leave, pending further investigation.

Putnam reportedly did not make his required rounds and falsified an electronic log to suggest that he did, investigators determined.

Video evidence shows that guards conducted hourly rounds, rather than every 30 minutes, as required. The electronic log, however, indicated that rounds were conducted earlier than the video reveals, according to the report. Someone “did falsify the electronic log book for rounds,” investigators concluded.

Cell lighting was also faulted, as investigators found that the cells are too dark at night and prisoners were allowed to cover their windows with paper and other items, according to the report.

Slagle killed himself just minutes before he was to be placed on close observation status, as required during the final 72-hours before execution. As a result, prison officials adopted an investigation recommendation that mental health experts determine if a prisoner’s mental state warrants an extended observation period.

Slagle apparently did not leave a suicide note, but it would seem that none was necessary. The Ohio Parole Board and Governor John Kaish had recently rejected the prosecutor’s rarest of requests to commute his sentence.

Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Tim McGinty asked Ohio parole officials to spare Slagle’s life, because he was just 18 years old and had a long history of drug and alcohol addiction when he stabbed his neighbor to death in 1987. McGinty noted that under current policy, prosecutors would not seek the death penalty due to those factors. Even if they did, jurors would likely impose the previously unavailable sentence of life without parole rather than death, McGinty admitted. The Board and Governor were not impressed.

Slagle died unaware of a last-minute appeal, based on evidence McGinty revealed of a plea offer prosecutors made but Slagle’s original attorney did not tell him about.

On the heels of Slagle’s death, Ohio prison officials faced another high-profile suicide. Just one month into his life sentence for kidnapping, raping and imprisoning three young girls in his home for a decade, Ariel Castro, 53, hung himself with a bed sheet on September 3, 2013.

Castro’s death may not have been a suicide as originally believed, but rather an ill-fated attempt at autoerotic asphyxiation - achieving sexual climax while choking oneself into unconsciousness, according to a report issued by prison officials on October 10, 2013.

Autoerotic asphyxiation was raised as a possible cause of death because Castro was found with his pants and underwear around his ankles, the report revealed. He did not leave a suicide note and no mental illness or suicide risk had been found in a recent psychological evaluation, investigators noted.

Although she was not informed that Castro was found with his pants down, Franklin County coroner Jan Gorniak said she stands by her finding that suicide was his cause of death.

Nevertheless, prison officials turned their findings over to the Ohio Highway Patrol “for consideration of the possibility of autoerotic asphyxiation,” according to the report.

The prison’s warden and deputy warden were moved to similar positions at other prisons and two more guards were suspended for falsifying their log books documenting the number of times they checked on Castro before he died and for not conducting timely rounds, according to the report. Castro’s death remains under investigation and both guards could face further discipline.

Yet a third prisoner suicide, just one week after Castro’s, forced prison officials to act. Although Ohio’s prisoner suicide rate is below the national average, with just 88 suicides since 2000, eight of those came in the first nine months of 2013.

“I care about everyone we have responsibility for, no matter what they’ve done,” said Gary Mohr, director of the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction. He admitted that the Slagle and Castro suicides prompted him to call in national prisoner suicide expert Lindsay M. Hayes, MD and law professor Fred Cohen, a former federal court-appointed monitor of a prison medical care settlement, who now serves as the prison system’s health-care consultant.

Hayes and Cohen will be paid $13,125 to evaluate prison policies and procedures dealing with mental assessment and other issues.

Sources: www.usatoday.com, www.cbsnews.com, www.dispatch.com, CNN, Associated Press

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